


Both Sides of His Mouth

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: A meditation on the inherent fragility of identity, Alcohol, Disguised as a simple story about two dudes fucking, Drunk Sex, Exhibitionism, M/M, Mirrors, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:29:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7591090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's no part of him that isn't wounded, where does one pour the salt?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both Sides of His Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place immediately after the events of "Lovecraft", in which Mayor James makes Jim go to work at Arkham.  
> I am not involved in the production of Gotham, and this school is not involved in the production of Gotham. No one pays me to do this. Do not try any of this at home. Thank you, and good night.

The world is empty tonight. That's what Jim thinks of. The song that Barbara used to play when they were having a fight was called My World Is Empty Without You. Only, toward the end, Jim didn't hear it anymore. Just silence.  
He wants to go home, find that song, play it. Though, he's not even sure if he misses her. He doesn't think he'll know until she calls him back. Sometimes, he's not sure how he feels about something until it's happening.  
Someone calls his name. He turns around. “What do you want?” His voice is rough in his throat; a rough, ugly thing.  
“Jim,” Dent says again, then, “Jim. I'm sorry.”  
“Get away from me.”  
“Jim, like I said, if you want to kick my ass, fine. I deserve it. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”  
“Fine. You told me.” He tries to push past Harvey, but Harvey's hand latches onto his arm.  
Harvey shakes his head. “I didn't want this to happen.”  
“Yeah, but you seem sort of relieved that it did.”  
“Am I happy that I didn't lose my job? Yes, Jim; you have me there. But what could I have done?”  
“Fought,” Jim rasps. His throat is beginning to hurt. “Fought for- Done something. You could have done something.”  
Harvey looks down at him, and for the first time, Jim's aware of how tall he is. In the dim light of the precinct steps, Harvey's eyes are so dark, like they're all pupil. “I know,” Harvey says, “Somehow, I'll make it up you. I'll-”  
“Save it.” He pulls his arm out of Harvey's grasp. But he doesn't walk away.  
“What will you do, now?”  
“They're sending me to Arkham.”  
Harvey, God damn him, smiles. “That seems a bit excessive; imprisonment in a sanitarium for insubordination.”  
“As a guard,” Jim says, feeling stupid, even though it was Harvey's crappy joke.  
“How would you feel about becoming an investigator for the DA's office?”  
“You're nuts,” Jim barks.  
“People tell me that. Think about it, at least.”  
“No thanks.”  
“At least take the time to sort out your options, before you do anything rash.”  
“That's funny, coming from you.”  
“I deserved that,” Harvey says, sounding... sad. “Why don't you let me buy you a drink, at least?”  
“I don't know if I feel like celebrating.”  
“Drowning of sorrows, perhaps? You could come to my apartment, drink all of my liquor, scream in my face.”  
Jim narrows his eyes. “Are you serious about working as an investigator?”  
“I can't make any promises, but I can definitely make suggestions to the right people.”  
“And what do you want in return?”  
“I owe you, Jim,” Harvey smiles, “Remember?”  
“Yeah, okay.”  
“'Okay' to what, exactly?”  
Jim looks around- for what?- and then nods. “One drink.”  
“Shall I drive us, or would you like to follow me, in your car?”  
Jim blinks. There's a question within that question, and he can just about sound it out, but it's like an irregular shape in the dark. You know where it is; but you don't know where it isn't. If you misstep, you'll collide with it. Hurt yourself. “You can drive.”  
“I can call you a cab, later,” Harvey says brightly.  
Harvey talks about his car. About his apartment. His upbringing. The play he saw a few weeks earlier. Jim doesn't have to talk. Harvey seems to run on silence. He eats it up, turns it into words to fill up the silence. Then, he eats the words. It's calming, somehow. By the time they get to Harvey's apartment, Jim still feels anger, feels it like the sting of cold lingers even after you've gone someplace warm, but it no longer seems to serve a purpose.  
Harvey drinks whiskey, so that's what Jim has, too. Harvey tells him stories about work, about college. His apartment's furnished with stories; there are framed photographs on the walls, all tied to some part of Harvey's history. When Harvey gets up to pour them another drink, Jim stands as well. He walks around the living room, looking at all of those photos. There's one of a younger Harvey standing behind a podium, pointing at another boy, also standing behind a podium. Harvey's mouth is open, caught mid-sentence. The photo's inscribed “To Apollo, To victory, From KHS Debate Society.”  
“Apollo?” Jim asks. He feels his mouth bend into a smile.  
“What's that?” Harvey comes over, and hands Jim his drink.  
“They called you Apollo?”  
“Yeah,” Harvey says with a gentle laugh, “That was my nickname in high school. The people on the debate team used to call me 'Janus'. They said,” he laughs again, looks down, “that I could debate either side of any issue with equal ease, so it was like I had two faces.”  
“Fitting.”  
Harvey smiles. “I deserved that.”  
“How do you get from there to Apollo?”  
“Junior year, at nationals, we went up against a school from Metropolis, who'd won something like fifty years in a row. They didn't win that year. After that, they started calling me Apollo because I'd practically flayed my opponent alive,” he laughs again, “It was that kind of high school.”  
“I still don't get it,” Jim says, wondering, not for the first time, what the joke is, and why no one will stop laughing long enough to explain it to him.  
“Oh, well, in the Greek myth, a satyr, Marsyas, challenges Apollo to a musical contest. Or, in some versions, Apollo challenges Marsyas. Either way, Marsyas loses, and Apollo flays him.”  
“That seems a bit harsh.”  
Looking thoughtful, Harvey sips his drink. “One competes against a god at one's own peril. Sometimes, it's better to accept your place in the grand scheme of things.”  
“This would be me, now, that you're talking about.”  
Harvey looks up. “What? No, Jim. It wasn't a swipe at you. We both know that you made the right choice. The only choice, for you.”  
“But?”  
“It's not the choice I would have made. You don't need me to tell you that.”  
“No, I don't.”  
He should leave. He should leave, now. But there's no one at Barbara's apartment, and there's definitely no one waiting for him at home. The world's empty. Jim knows it. It just seems slightly less empty, as long as Harvey keeps talking.  
He listens to more stories about Harvey's school days. The debate society. The track and field team. The AP classes. The exams. The parties. The road trips. It all starts to evoke a feeling of de ja vu in Jim. After a moment, he understands why. This is the life he should have lead.  
“My dad wanted me to be a lawyer,” Jim says.  
“Of course he did.”  
“He never told me. He didn't have to.”  
“He would have been proud of what you're doing, now.”  
Laughing, Jim shakes his head. “You didn't know my father.” Though, Jim thinks, can't stop himself from thinking, neither did I.  
“He was, in his own way, a very brave man, and I think he would have appreciated that same bravery in his son.”  
“You really can sell anything to anyone.”  
Harvey frowns. It looks... wrong, on his face. “Sometimes, even I say the wrong thing.”  
“I don't do this,” Jim says. Harvey doesn't seem to need much more of an explanation.  
“Oh, nor do I. Except when I do.”  
When you're already feeling bad, it's easy to do something you know is wrong. It can feel like it's the only thing you can do, being so wrong, yourself. But Harvey's warm, and his mouth is soft, and he tastes like liquor. It's almost like kissing Barbara. But Barbara was sweet and sleepy, like a doll Jim could move around. He could take off her clothes, pose her in any position. Push a button, and she'd say, Oh, Jim. Always the same thing. Somehow, it never got boring.  
Harvey's hands are in his hair, up the back of his shirt, on his hips, his ass. At first, they're surveying, it seems, learning Jim like a new landscape. Then, they're probing. Pulling his hair. Tugging at his clothes. Taking off his shirt. Fingers scraping his back, digging into his hips. It's strange, and not entirely welcome, but Jim wants to see where it goes. Comparing Harvey to Barbara is also not exactly enjoyable, but it's irresistible. Though, it makes Jim start to feel like there are three people there.  
Harvey pushes him back. His hand's on Jim's throat; not applying pressure, but resting there. Jim moves his hips experimentally. Now, both of Harvey's hands are on his hips, moving Jim the way Harvey wants him to move.  
“Do you like that?” Harvey asks.  
“Yes.”  
“Do you want it right here?” Harvey slips one hand over Jim's thigh, between his legs. “On the couch? Do you want to keep doing it like this, with our clothes on?”  
Jim's suddenly aware that he's actually half naked. Aware of the cool air on his skin, chilled where Harvey's mouth has been.  
“Or do you want to go to my bedroom?” Harvey continues, “Do you want me in bed, naked? Do you want to fuck me, in my bed?”  
Jim never knows what the fuck he wants.  
He doesn't know anything, actually, but this hot, aching drag through his belly and down. Nothing but the bitterness of arousal, and Harvey flushed and hard against him. It'd take two minutes to get off like this, friction and heat and Harvey kissing him, sucking his tongue. The heel of Harvey's hand pressing between his legs, touching him everywhere and nowhere. Even less if Harvey put his hand down Jim's pants. And then, what he wouldn't do. Harvey could do anything he wanted. He imagines being on his hands and knees, Harvey entering him slowly. How it would feel, to take the first couple of inches; the pain that isn't really pain, but has no word to describe it. He can feel Harvey, now, the bluntness and fullness of his erection in his pants. With the right movement of hips, Jim feels it right where it would go.  
“What do you want?” Jim asks.  
“Get up.”  
It's only once he stands, that Jim realizes how drunk he actually is. It's a dark blur on the way to Harvey's bedroom, Harvey leading him from the brightness of the living room, into gloom, and into the light, again, when he turns on the lamp in his bedroom. Jim finds himself looking himself in the face. He looks surprised to see him. He frowns, and of course, his reflection does, too. He turns away from the mirrored wall. “Can you turn out the light?” he asks.  
“Don't you think it's more fun with the light on?” Harvey's unbuttoning his shirt. He seems to be looking just to the side of Jim. Jim lets himself lean back, fall against the mirror. When he rolls a little, lays his cheek against it, it's cool enough to make him shiver.  
“You like to watch yourself?” Jim asks, only half jokingly.  
“Looking the way we look, why shouldn't we?” Harvey asks, and turns Jim around, so that he's facing himself. Harvey bows his head, kisses Jim's neck, down his back. He undoes Jim's pants, slips his hand inside. It seems like his hands are everywhere, but Jim only has to look in the mirror to see exactly what Harvey's doing. He takes out Jim's cock, strokes slowly, rubs the tip against the mirror, leaving a streak of pre-ejaculate. When Jim comes, the semen hits the mirror, too. It feels like a dream. He knows that it's real, though, from the way his body aches. He always seems to be in pain. Getting off only takes away some of it. He's remembering what he thought about earlier. It seems like a promise, now.  
“What do you want to do to me?” Jim asks.  
Harvey smiles at him, silent, inscrutable. Then, they're on Harvey's bed. He turns his head to the side, and sees, in the mirror, Harvey undress him. He watches Harvey touch him, the way he touches him. He watches Harvey move his limbs around. He watches himself watching Harvey watching himself take off his own clothes. He watches Harvey insert two fingers into him. He watches himself being fucked.  
“It's addictive, isn't it?” Harvey asks. His face is against Jim's neck. “You can't take your eyes off of yourself.” Jim watches as he feels as he watches himself feel. “If I do it from behind, we can both see.”  
“Do it,” Jim says, and watches Harvey move him around. They're across the bed, now. He's on his hands and knees, with Harvey behind him. He looks at Harvey's face, and he looks at his own.  
“How does it feel?” Harvey asks.  
“Good,” Jim swallows, “Don't stop.”  
“Oh, Jim,” Harvey says. Jim pushes back, against him, just to hear him say it again. He fucks himself like that, Harvey's hands on his hips to steady him. He can feel that odd, slightly nauseous quivering within, and directs his motion accordingly. He watches Harvey pick up his rhythm, sees it before he feels it. It starts to seem like he can only feel it if he watches his reflection feeling first, as though his reflection's another person, showing him what to do. Maybe all of this is actually happening to that other man.  
He's watching, now, more than he's feeling. Harvey brings him to orgasm, but it's oddly shallow, until he looks up, and sees himself. He watches Harvey continue, faster now, shaking Jim's body. He looks at Harvey's face as he comes. Harvey's eyes are closed. He watches Harvey pull out, discard the used condom. He watches-  
“Jim?”  
The show's over.  
Harvey's between him and the mirror. He eases Jim back, covers Jim with his long body, kisses him.  
“I told you it was better that way,” Harvey says. Jim wants to hurt him, somehow, for sounding so satisfied with himself, but it's difficult to even imagine doing it. Maybe if he could watch himself, it would work.  
He lets Harvey continue to kiss him, to touch him gently, to move against him in a slowed-down imitation of what they've just done. It doesn't feel bad; it just doesn't feel like anything. Sometimes, for Jim, nothing feels like anything. Sometimes, to even be sure that he's alive, he has to do or say the unthinkable. He asks Harvey:  
“Do you ever feel like you're two people, and that one of them is constantly working against the other? Trying to hurt him?”  
Harvey laughs. “That's a silly question.” He brushes his lips against Jim's forehead. “Of course not.”


End file.
